Today's development community has grown rapidly to include not only the information technology department, but also mobile application developers, line of business (LoB) developers, and third-party developers that can work for a vendor, partner, or other external constituency.
In many instances, this diverse group needs to be able to easily identify and access an organization's software assets to build or extend applications without directly dealing with a complex information technology infrastructure. As a result, today's applications increasingly use application programming interfaces (APIs) to manage the links between critical back-end business processes, and facilitate connections from many types of devices and computing platforms, from mobile phones and tablets to household devices to personal health trackers and automotive systems.
As API use increases and the development community expands, the management and visibility of these APIs becomes increasingly important.